Tra-la/ its May.’ The Lusty
Month of May.’

That lovely month when every-
one goes blissfully astray.’

9 From Camelot, by Lerner and
Lowe

ex, Sex, Sex!" Yes, this col-

umn is all about sex and

spirituality, so ifyou aren’t
interested in reading about ritual
orgasms you can stop‘ right here
and move on to the Mostly
Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan
Green.

Beltane is the most popu-
lar of the ancient Celtic festivals
that survived the onslaught of
Christianity into Scotland and
Ireland in the first centuries of the
Christian Era. Why is it so popu-
lar? Well, it’s all about ‘orgies and
orgasms, sweeties.

In popular American gay
culture Beltane is perhaps most

Everyone is
throwing off

their winter garments
ang letting the sun shine
on"their naked bodies.

Virtually all of the

traditions associated

with Beltane are
designed to get you
horny and rutting.

well-known in Julie Andrews’s
delightful Broadway portrayal of
Queen Guinivere in lusty pursuit
of Sir Lancelot in the Lerner and
Lowe musical Camelot. (Admit it,
Queens! You probably have the
tune running through your head -
right now!) Now, of course,
Guinivere practically gets burned
at the stake for her trouble. But at
least she gets that fabulous dance
number with all those butch
Knights in Shining Armor before
it all goes horribly wrong.

' On the other end of
queer style, there was a fad a few
years back for Stalin-era Soviet
regalia. To this day, communists
and other labor activists around
the world celebrate May Day with
huge parades honoring the produc-
tive labor of the working class. '
When you dig out that trendy red
star cap, you are hearkening back
to pre-Christian European pagan-
ism. (Alright, that wasn’t so much
about sex, but you know I had to
work politics in here somehow!)

So what exactly is
Beltane? Beltane is the festival of
the god Bell, a fertility god, often

th

 

signified by a sun symbol. By the
traditional festival date of May
lst, Spring has really kicked off in
many parts of the world, even if
we’re still suffering mud season
here in Vermont. Everyone is
throwing off their.winter gannents
and letting the sun shine on their
naked bodies. There are any num-
ber of traditions associated with
Beltane, and virtually all of them
are designed to get you horny and
rutting. '
When I was

newly hatched
pagan, having
thrown off the
hard shell of
Catholicism,
Beltane was one ‘
of the first pagan
holidays that I
learned about. All
these poles and
holes just seemed
like so many
penises and vagi-
nas. It appeared as
though hetero-nor-
mativity was the
way to go in the
pagan tradition,
just as it was in
Roman Catholic
doctrine. But, I
was in the closet
pretty deeply at
that time. It still
wasn’t very safe
to openly question the seeming
biological rigidity ofthe May
Queen and her consort, the King
Stag, rutting in ritualistic sexual
frenzy.

The most well known
Beltane tradition is, of course, the
May Pole. The May pole is made
from the trunk of the Yule Tree
that is decorated at the Winter
Solstice, the darkest day of the
year. We put small lights on the
Yule Tree to indicate that the sun
will return. We celebrate the birth
of the new God at the turning of
the year. As we move to Beltane,
the branches of the Yule Tree are
removed to leave us with a long
pole that is upended into a large
hole in -the newly thawed and fer-
tile earth.

The May pole represents
the fertility of the King Stag, born
at the solstice and hitting his sexu-
al stride at Beltane. The May 7
Queen is chosen from among the
maidens, and she gives her virgini-
ty to the God to help ensure a fer-
tile harvest come Lammas.

The polehas long rib-
bons tied’to the top and a tradi-

e Mayole

      
    

tional maypole dance has men
weaving in one direction while
women weave in the other, creat-
ing a fancy braid down the length
of the tall phallus.

When I was first learning
about the Maypole tradition, in
College, we took it very seriously.
Women and men did not mix in
the dance, there were equal num-
bers of male-bodied and female-
bodied in the ritual and the weave
had to be exactly right. Goddess
forbid that anyone should mess
with the tradition. I remember cre-
ating a headdress of stag antlers
for the young man that was chosen
to represent the King Stag. But
many of us shy types found our-
selves a little left out of festivities.

These days, the Radical
Faeries of the Northeast celebrate
Beltane with a little more anarchy
and a much looser definition of
what constitutes Male and Female,
God and Goddess, Maiden and
Horned One. Up in the hills of
Lincoln, Vermont, the Faeries and
the Witches celebrate Beltane
together, one of the few times dur-
ing the faeries’ year when bio-

I women and bio-men mix in rela-

tively equal if gender-fucked
quantities.

A Maypole is set up and
the traditional dance is held but
there is no pre-occupation with
who has a penis and who has a
vagina. Usually part of the weave
is beautifully and symmetrically
braided. But there are also big
spaces where it’s a colorful jum-
ble, or where some wacky faerie
or butch witch has decided to go
her own merry and anarchic way,
making’ a mess of the whole thing.

_ And, of course, what
silly Queen can resist letting them-
selves get tied up to the base of
the pole? She’s always there, year
after year, screaming for rescue by
her Knight in Shining Armor, or
perhaps hoping for flogging from
some leather-clad medieval
inquisitor.

What I’ve learned in fif-
teen years of Beltane Celebrations
and the struggle to come out as a
queer pagan, is that fertility, cre-
ativity and productivity are not
based in biological sex but rather
inspiritual commitment, commu-
nity building, self-love and the
ability to live fully in our bodies,
made in the image of both god and
goddess. In each of us there is
both Maiden and King Stag,
Mother Earth and Father Sky,
Raven, Goddess and.Sun God.
Sometimes we may manifest one
aspect of the divine more strongly
then another aspect but we all are
part of the May Pole dance, how- ,
ever we chose to weave in our
colors.,'V

Pippin is a radical faerie working
with ‘Faerie Camp Destiny in
Grafton, Vermont. He is also
known as Christopher Kaufman,
the Executive Director‘ ofR. U. 1.2?
Community Center. He can be
reached at pippin@sover. net.

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